Star Wars actor Riz Ahmed warned the British Parliament that a lack of television diversity could drive young people toward extremist Islamist beliefs.
Addressing the politicians, he said: ‘There is a serious hiring problem and it’s only when the Government steps in to set the rules of the game that it really drives people.’
‘The term diversity actually turns me off a little bit, it makes it sound like a luxury, like a bit of spice sprinkled on the top, but we need to understand that it isn’t an extra, it is representation.
Riz Ahmed is 100% invited to the cookout. Riz talking about representation in the industry today. WATCH THIS! MY FAV IS WOKE! pic.twitter.com/h2EF8Zk5n8
— Jason “Lemonade”-ing (@IsotopeRose) March 2, 2017
‘Every time you see yourself reflected in the media it’s a message that you matter.’
‘In the mind of an IS recruit he is the next James Bond. Everybody thinks in their own head they are doing the right thing.
‘Where is the counter-narrative to the terrorists, telling these kids they can be heroes here?’
“People are looking for the message that they belong, that they are part of something, that they are seen and heard and that despite, or perhaps because of, their experience, they are valued. They want to feel represented. In that task, we have failed.”
“If we don’t step up and tell a representative story … we are going to start losing British teenagers to the story that the next chapter in their lives is written with ISIS in Syria. We are going to see the murder of more MPs like Jo Cox because we’ve been mis-sold a story that is so narrow about who we are and who we should be.”
